Learning the ways

We are finally settling into our new lifestyle. Pictures are up on the wall, cleaning supplies are organized and stowed, and winter gear is safely tucked away.

We've been here in San Francisco for a month now, and immediately fell in love with our new city all over again. The energy is palpable, always something to explore, always a coffee shop, wine bar or cafe to check out.

I'm working in the ICU at California Pacific Medical Center as a Travel Nurse am delighted to have found an amazing yoga studio - I will be complete my teachers training in a few weeks! Mike just secured a job with Salesforce.com (congrats Kehoe!) and has plotted out his running path at the marina.

Slowly, our bodies are adapting the multitude of hills in our neighborhood. We're also composting, recycling and using our canvas grocery bags, but still getting use to the driving and parking frenzy!

It has been wonderful to rekindle old friendships as Mike reunites with a few of his old friends from San Diego. Julie, Mike, Carrie and Meg have been so wonderful and we feel like we have instant friends who offer to take us hiking, to the beach, to cook out, explore the city and beyond.

Aapl and Arnii are still learning the ways too, Arnii seems to have picked up on the new sidewalk potty routine faster than his sister! They love to run at the dog park just up the hill (and a HUGE hill at that!) and are happy to have a balcony where they can spy on the action below...

Bye for now!

San Francisco, here we come!

...and the lure of California wins in the end.

This has been an exciting 9 months for us: married in June, new jobs in July, new puppy in October, and acceptance into Anesthesia School!

But with the variety of life's little roadbumps that we have encountered, along with the goal of returning to California standing firmly in our 5-year plan, we decided to shake things up and pull the trigger to move things up a few years!

In just a few short weeks we will be packing our belongings and heading back to California, making San Francisco our new home.

We know it will be tough leaving Wisconsin and all our family and friends. So here goes a big risk, and we hope our guts and hearts are leading us in the right direction.

Westward - ho! ... now come visit us!

Home Sweet Wisconsin

Ahhh, snow and cold weather.

I've got henna on my hands, bruises on my legs, curry in my belly and mosquito bites everwhere. It is great to be home! ...and I couldn't believe the hoops we had to jump through in order to actually leave Delhi, making it extra special when the plane finally took off! This will be another remarkable memory - the majority of things in Delhi just don't make sense...inefficiency at it's finest.

Why do I have to wait in line at the hotel lobby for the man to write out a breakfast coupon, only to turn around and give it to another man standing adjacent to him? Why do semi-trucks decide to park (and thus block) the right lane when they want to take a break? Why is it ok to just throw your pop bottles and plastic bags on the ground? Why do you tell me one price, when we both know I will end up paying half of that? Why are you still using that ancient, humungous ledger book to write everything down? And why oh why do you keep honking that horn so incessantly?!? It doesn't do anything! Ahh, it feels good to be home.

All in all, I am so thankful for this experience. I feel proud of myself that I was able to commit to such an unusual trip and take away new friends and new perceptions of the great big world out there. It was tough, it was fun, it was feelgood, it was feel terrible. My long list of notworthy memories will be too complicated to write about, so here goes the abbreviated list:

- Maryann thinking it was a green bean, only to discover it was the hottest chilli pepper in the world
- Rhesus monkeys as common as squirrels
- The pleasant greeting of 'Namaste'
- Digging, Digging and more digging. And then being told 'Dig more deep!'
- Yummy Indian food: Butter Naan, Kheer, Spinach Kabobs, Cheese Soufle ... Not Yummy Indian food: Daily rice and lentils, hot and spicey vegggies
- Amazing dental hygiene - amongst a community of poverty, this area had the nicest white teeth
- Riding a bicylce rickshaw into Old Delhi to eat at Karim's, who prepared the tastiest concoctions of the Mughal recipes passed down from generations.
-Going to outdoor yoga with my new friends
-Taj Mahal. Breathtaking.
- Finding out that Katrina is also the name of the beloved Bollywood star (and realizing why everyone loves saying 'Katrina!'
- Stepping over a child in Bawana becuase he was sqatting down to poo in the street
- Meeting our awesome team: Rebecca, Thea, Maryann, Pat, Zach, Larry, Bob, Jim, Brad, Laura, Jessie, Melinda, Sue and Amit
- All of those 'lost in translation' moments (goes hand in hand with the 'Indian nod'...wait - here? there? oh, here? wait, WHAT??)
- 5 hour bus ride to Agra, suffering with the Delhi Belly
- Spending a whirlwind day in London on no sleep
- Eating Italian food at a Mexican restaurant in India
- Realizing that when life hands you dirty lemons, get a couple of friends, a handful of pebbles to toss, and the one that hits the tire over there wins
- Watching Paa at the local movie theater!
-Experiencing a moment bigger than myself at Ghandi's assasination locale
-Tearing up with my team and the new homeowners, as we passed along our housewarming gift from us to them
- Trying to communicate with only pantomimes, gestures and sound affects to break the language barrier
- Watching tv and ending up loving the Bollywood music videos!



Aahhh. And now I've got hot chocolate, lettuce and apples in my tummy. Yes, it is great to be home!

Arriving in Bawana

The focus of our trip is to help build housing in the slums of Bawana, 25km northwest of Delhi. I am soon realizing that I will take away much more than the rewards of this seemingly basic task. But to recapture the feel of our first 6 days, here is the morning recap in the life of a Bawana bricklayer...

We awaken at 0700, only to analyze how we each slept on the rock hard mattress (which was clearly not set to our sleep number) and we rinse off with the 2 minutes of warm water that our water tank holds. Breakfast at the YMCA lobby consists of the same thing every day - white bread and eggs done in only 1 of two ways, and an unidentifiable Indian style breakfast pastry. This is why none of us want to see an egg for quite some time.

The rickity bus then takes us on the hour long ride through Delhi and beyond, bonus points if you get a front seat and remember to take your Dramamine. On our way, we see goats tied up to the median, squatters setting up tent along the highway, and people walking with all sorts of things piled high on their heads. There is a perpetual noise of horns continuously honking, the constant risk of smashing into someone trying to cut us off (or as we try to cut them off) and the dust is so thick we can taste it... and then there are the smells to top it all off.

As we pull into Bawana, what seems to be the entire town comes out to greet us, stare at us, and sell us their loot of socks, hair scrunchies and food nibbles. We make it off the bus and walk about 10 minutes into the slum to our base camp of the Chetanaya Community Center.

One of the most wonderful memories that I will have of our trip will be the spirits of these children. As all 14 of us walk single file (to avoid falling into street sewers or feces-gunk) children and families come out of the woodwork to greet us with their 'Hiii!' 'Hellooo' 'Howareyouuu!'. Their smiles are brilliant and instantly erase the distaste we feel of these streets.

Another remarkable facet of this community, are the colors in the women's clothing. There are vibrant pinks, reds, blues and sparklies adorning the saris. The slum would have a completely different visual, if it weren't for these amazing colors that illuminate the alleys.

We divide into three small groups, with Team Two consisting of Maryann, Pat, Zach, Thea and myself - we grab our tools (we are now too friendly with the 'Indian Shovel', pick axes and shovels - and Sham, our site leader, escorts us down through the dirty alley ways, to the meager 10 foot by 12 foot plot of our homeowner.

Yellow, the nurse

I have acquired a new nickname today: Yellow. The community knows only a few English words, but being the only lighthaired blonde women, I am now known as 'Yellow'.

Coincidentally, today is also the first day my first aid kit got some good use. We actually had to create a makeshift 'sick bay' at the community center so that 3 of our teamates could rest. So far, our soldiers have fallen ill to 1: "Delhi Belly", 2: Respiratory Issues/Fever/Malaise, and 2: a sliced open finger from some extreme brick handling. It is only day 5 today, so I am off to see a 'Chemist' tonight to replenish the first aid kit - and get a few more things like Visine, since my eyes are killing me with all of the brick dust and general air pollution. Along with some of those instant cold packs, in anticipation of future injuries.

Our hotel internet shuts down at 5:30pm, which is also the same time we return from our worksite. Fortunately, we arrived home a little early today, but despite trying to take advantage of the language barrier, this nice man is insisting I 'remove myself' from the computer station.

Until next time ~ Namaste,
Yellow

Namaste!

Here we are, completing day 4 of our trek in India. Wow. Delhi is truly like nothing I have ever seen. It is almost like jumping into a time warp, except that I don't know how far back we would go.

The streets are filled with high speed cars, tractors, rickshaws and bicycles to haul anything from matress stacks, to flour sacks, people and more. Not to mention dogs, mules, monkeys and ox sharing the roads. The city is layered with a blanket of dark and sandy dust, so much so, that my Qtip has the same dark color when I clean out me ears at the end of the day (euw, sorry).

Houses vary from fancy apartment buildings to squatters on the highway meridian, crouching under tarps made of plastic bags and scraps of metal. The women build fires on the side of the road to cook their food, and children run around without shoes or pants on, and simply squat down when it is time to do number 1 or 2.

But our work has been great, very rewarding - we feel like celebraties when we enter the slums of Bawana, all the childrens' faces light up, saying 'Namaste!' and 'Hiiii!' 'Hello!' 'Happy Birthday'!

I can't wait to update more, but we have to catch the Bollywood movie, and I'm sitting in the backroom of a curious store, somewhere near Connaught Place, using their computer...

More to follow soon.

Namaste!

Hoooonk Hooooonk!

and we have arrived!

I succesfully met up with my teamates Rebecca and Sue at O'hare, and together we caught the 7 hour red eye into London. I sat next to a nice young man who happened to be a Family Medicine Resident in Madison, and as we got to chatting, he filled me in on his trip to Nairobi, Kenya - where he was meeting up with his wife who is doing some graduate studies there. He was on his way to volunteer for a 5 week medical mission in the middle of nowhere Kenya, which was certainly inspiring to hear about. After he convined me to watch Julie and Julia followed with a terrible airplane meal, I tossed and turned until we found ourselves arriving at Heathrow.

Since we had 10 hour layover before our flight into Delhi - and our doctor friend had even longer to Nairobi, we all venturd into London to spend a jolly good day together. We hopped the tube into Picadilly Square, and from there hopped on the open air bus to ride around Trafalgar Square, Covent Garden and the Tower Bridge. We walked around a bit and saw the Climate Change March which cut off our access to Big Ben, but we got lucky finding a great neighorhood alive with people walking about and dining and shopping. We overheard things like Cheers, and Mushy Peas and Fantastic - before the rain and our schedule forced us back to Heathrow.

After another 7 hour red eye flight (still no shower, still wearing the same socks) we arrived in Delhi at 11am Sunday morning - 12 hours ahead of Central time. Poor Sue! Her bags never showed up! They are scheduled to arrive tomorrow, so we'll keep our fingers crossed - I had a HUGE sigh of relief when I saw big red the suitcase show up for me. Two other teamates were delayed in Canada from the snow - unfortunately they won't arrive until Wednesday! So all things considered, my trip went very smoothly!

So here we are in Delhi - at the YMCA Tourist Hotel. Our group assembled for lunch and everyone seems great! My roomate MaryAnn is an attorney from New York and everyone seems so enthused about our trip. Our room is simple and we practically share a solid hard bed, but there is hot water to shower and awesome food for $1 a plate. We are located right in the hustle and bustle of downtown Delhi - horns! Everyone loves honking their horns! (and smack dab in th middle of a monkey territory!) so I am sure there will be some good experinces to share!

We are about to have our first team meeting to meet our host, Amit, and find out more about our project for the next week. Bye for now!

~Katrina